—–
“I can’t believe it,” Guy Benjamin exclaimed a little later to Grandmama after she broke the news. “Grandpapa’s dead!”
“Did in with his own cane,” she explained, her voice starting to waver. “The old fool.” She was inconsolable for months, maybe years. Axis had done a bad thing. A bad bad thing. We must reexamine the ultimate motives of his character in light of this horrendous act.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0017, 0516, Kowloon+
There was only one place to go.
“I can’t see, Fish Head. I had to borrow an old man’s cane just to get here. He’s laying back there in the alley — may want to tell the local authorities in an hour or two. Make it two… since I’m blind. Anyway, you better tell the Heart Queen that I’m going to have to abort the mission.”
Fish Head began mixing the booze in his hands again, eventually saying, “she’s not going to like it.”
“I know, I know,” Axis followed quickly. “Just tell her.” He points to his sightless, red eyes. “Not much choice.”
Fish Head retrieved a glass underneath the bar and poured the mixed drink in from the canister. He pushed the glass toward Axis. “Here. Drink this down. Then have a re-consider.”
Axis knew he wasn’t going to “have a re-consider” but took the drink anyway. Free booze was always a weakness. But Fish Head, of course, knew that already. “Go ahead,” he urged. Axis drank.
—-
He woke up in a trench beneath the water. He wasn’t blind any longer — looked up and saw a spinny red, fabric-like thingie wielding scissors and knife in metal hands. Another doctor.
He knew he had been fixed up.
He stands up and makes his way through the trench back to the surface. Still in the service of the Heart Queen obviously.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0017, 0515, Kowloon+
I’m very close to the answer, Axis thinks while staring up.
He turns. Very close.
He buys the “white eye” offered on top of the old drum can for a linden dollar, wears, and instantly becomes blinded.
“*Shite*.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0017, 0514, Kowloon+
Feng Sui and Qi stare at the door waiting for customers that never come. “Damn that Fish Head,” sitting Qi exclaims at one point. “Damn the Head and the Fish,” reinforces her standing sister at the time, then later thinks, while still standing and staring over: maybe we should fix the bullet holes in the door. Maybe that doesn’t help with the customers. The Store Zero slaughters were a long time ago, after all. Maybe it’s time to finally heal the wounds. “We can’t have a repeat of the past, sister of mine,” she speaks down to Qi after telling her the same. “Oh *no*,” Qi doubles down. They both know, no matter what’s going on with Fish Head and the Bird above them, that they cannot return to the ugly, brutal past. The Dark Days.
Qi rises from the stool. “I’ll go try to find some sealant.” ‘Bout time.
—–
Later: back at their nearby apartment…
… Qi dwells on the dark past…
… while Feng Sui discusses what to fix for supper with Uncle Jack.
“Quinoa all right?”
Jack: “You’ll have to ask Uncle *John* about that,” indicating the man sitting in the rocking chair on the balcony. John Lockfry 01. Been a long time.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0017, 0513, Kowloon+
Tronesisia sits out of the way on the docks so that Baker Bloch can get a shot of “pipe alley”, leading to the doctor. He suspects this may be the Dr. of “Lamb”….
But then Baker Bloch changes his mind and has Tronesisia interact with this so-called doctor, who turns out to be an old friend: Dr. Diper, who helped her (and her parents) out immensely when she was a mere baby. Before she became, well, robotic. Gynoidic.
“It’s so so good to see you old friend,” he began, instantly recognizing his work. Perhaps his greatest work.
“Likewise Dr. Wiper!” cheered Tronesisia, just glad to be in a scene again.
“Diper,” corrected the doctor. “But we’re both grown up now. Call me…”
“Peter?” Tronesisia guessed. Yes. It was Peter. One of ’em.
Clanking within. The doctor was working on another case. Another Peter.
“It wasn’t going to hurt me,” he practiced, and then swiped his bloodied knife in front of him again, a built-in reflex action.
“Good, good,” the tv doctor cooed. “*Why* wasn’t it going to hurt you?”
Jack appeared beside him. Glowering. “Yeah, *John*. Why???”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0017, 0512, Kowloon+
Benny Right Horn was swaying while listening to the song of the wind and enjoying it thoroughly. He’s decided to at least temporarily abandon his search for Tessa on the railroad and stay here, in a secret camp next to the cascading water at this particular cave mouth. Soon, gun in hand again, he will run into likewise EOT visitor Jackson Bloch, also looking for the grandchild of Herbert Gold. The meeting may not turn out as expected.
In fact, here he comes now from the direction of Wabe. Or is it Wabd? Rebl would know. She’ll reenter the picture soon as well.
In fact, there she is.
“I heard clanking.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0017, 0511, End of Time+
A series of pictures inside.
But what Duncan found really curious was the seeming resonance with the 100 Story Building still present as of this writing over in the Kowloon sim, understood through notes supplied by his employer (PotD). Specifically Story/Room 87 and its own symbols of billiard balls: stools representing 8, 3, 2, and then also the 1, but with that particular seat covered by a laptop with a prominent XVideos sticker. We’ve talked about them before in this earlier post of this here photo-novel (17).
Note the visible stools 8, 3, and 2 add up to 13 again. Something is hidden or covered up in each case, the Great Deceiver in action.
Duncan, then, has a plan. He feels his time in The Waste is over, East-West loss exposed. Much like this particular version of Kowloon’s 100 story building has served its function and is scheduled to be demolished in a day or two or so. He will *sit* in that room, waiting for the end. Then dust himself off in the rubble after the 87 story fall and move on from there.
He decides to write a song about the experience to mark the time.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0017, 0510, 100 Story Building-, Kowloon+, The Waste+
Duncan Avocado was wandering around the various stairs, tunnels, beaches of The Rot, thinking he’ll never be able to figure out The Waste. Huge! And dangerous.
While ruminating this, he spots what appears to be a face in the rocks at the top of a nearby, ruined tower. I’m not one to focus on seeing faces in random patterns (pareidolia), but I thought I would note this one, especially since it seems to represent a *particular* face to me. That of Richard Milhous Nixon, our 37th president who resigned in disgrace in 1973 and was known, through the infamous Watergate Scandal, for his trickery and deception. A nickname became Tricky Dicky.
I’ve highlighted the face a little through black outline to the right. He even appears to have a little horn sticking out of his forehead, marking him as the Great Deceiver. Compare with here (hint: Nixon’s conspicuous nose is, cartoon-like, exaggerated in the rocks):
In his new book One Man Against the World, Tim Weiner explores some of the questions surrounding the presidency of Richard Nixon, pictured above in the Oval Office on Feb. 19, 1970.
Duncan also thinks back to the 13 billiard ball he found fronting a Southern residence of The Great Fissure, just beyond its lip. Or I guess, since we’re talking about the South, we better call it the Great Fracture or face ramifications.
Note the horns again in the “hell’ sign above the horseshoe framed pool ball.
This could be the home of Fracture biased Jed Campton, then, but Duncan couldn’t tell. There was no one inside. Duncan had a hard time tracking anyone down in this sim, and considered himself lucky that there were weekly meetings of residents at the Last Drop where he could *eaves*drop on local gossip. The Gossipers they called them back in Jackson Bloch’s day. Before the erasure of East-West. He understood that part too, thanks to Gabriel’s dream.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0017, 0509, The Waste+
We understand the mysterious cactus bud art depicted on this Northerner’s rock is actually Podge and Spleenburster, who we already know from the Monoflo Pinion book found in Hambone.
It’s the oldest story in the world. Two men bicker over territory only to resolve their differences via a nice, shared meal.
I include the whole story at the end of this report for context. Note that it’s the Great Fissure in the book, not the Great Fracture. Northern appellation, then.
According to Gabriel (again), an alternate text with just words and no pictures is titled “Olive Green Pink”, which he claims is about 10x as long, or about 200 pages he estimates. I am still looking for a copy. I assume it goes into much more detail about the lives of this ghoul and mutant, along with the smoothskin or cowboy, the Pink of the title obviously, as Olive is Podge and Green is Spleenbu(r)ster.
Another note: Gabriel is a channeller.
Here ’tis:
THE GHOUL & THE MUTANT
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0017, 0508, The Waste+
I’m going to *search* out meaning in life while I have it. Like this Great Fracture or Fissure. What is it? Why do people live around it? Fractured — like this world, this estate. Why exist here?
—–
I’ve got to get out of here! thought Duncan Avocado while staring out from the Great Fracture or Fissure sim at the Spiral Jetty over in Hambone. Create some interactive land art; take some Real Life photos; something! Jackson Bloch did it. I can too!
But, no, his assignment tonight was to head down to the Last Drop at the west lip of the Fissure and interact with the locals; try to get some dirt on what’s going down. Besides lip rocks.
—–
“I dreamed last night,” began weight challenged Gabriel again, “that the Fissure was a great mouth, trying to tell us something. You know, that rock in the middle, that pillar, was the tongue.”
“We Camptons like to call it *Fracture*, reiterated Jed across from him for the hundredth time. It was a great debate: Fracture or Fissure. Another one of those split worlds, like we’ve seen with continental names Maebaelia or Satori. Another of those South-North separations, even. Because the South side of the Fissure, Camptons included, preferred Fracture, while the North side — Gabriel, et al. — preferred the obverse. One could *observe*, from above, the mouth speaking, true. Breaking away from Gabriel’s glare, Jed allowed him to continue his story, name problem set aside for the moment. “Alright,” he encouraged. “Go ahead.”
Duncan listened carefully from a nearby chair as the fourfold truth was told about the sim.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0017, 0507, The Waste+
Sunklands 